By Elizabeth Hernandez
The Denver Post

So many students and parents packed into the auditorium at Denver’s Munroe Elementary School on Monday for a gang-resistance graduation program that the ceremony had to be split into two rooms.

Some of the fourth- and fifth-graders graduating from the Gang Resistance Education and Training, or G.R.E.A.T., program were already being recruited into gangs or had family members involved in gang activity who were caught in the crossfire, said juvenile probation officer Deborah Garcia-Sandoval, who taught the G.R.E.A.T. program to students.

“We’ve had students report to us at this school that their parents have thrown themselves on top of their kids during shootings or that members of their family have been shot,” she said. READ WHOLE ARTICLE

DENVER, CO. – June 01, 2015: 11 year old 5th grader Javier Medina (center) and a few of his class mates celebrate as well over 100 4th and 5th graders from Munroe Elementary School graduated from G.R.E.A.T. (Gang Resistance Education And Training) coordinated by probation officer, Deborah Garcia-Sandoval of Colorado Courts. June 01, 2015 Denver, CO (Photo By Joe Amon/The Denver Post)